Running Around

So, some catching up...

The expo. The expo was held in the Alamodome, which was by far the largest venue for a Rock and Roll event. It was necessary, however, as 30,000 people signed up for the race. The expo was absolutely packed, especially on Saturday.



There was a long line for our survey (at one point it wrapped around two sides of our booth), and several times there were so many people in the Crocs area you could barely move. We had some record-breaking numbers this weekend, and overall from a work standpoint it was a good event.



Saturday night we headed out for our final team dinner. We walked along the riverwalk for a while, which reminds me a bit of New Orleans Bourbon Street, only with a canal down the middle and a little more tame.



I also walked over to the Tower of the Americas, which is basically a less intesting knock-off space needle. It even has a revolving restaurant at the top.



We got to the Italian restaurant, where we proceeded to have great food and horrid service. We sat waiting for our table, which sat open for a half hour before we were seated. Then we waited for 10 minutes before we were brought water. Another 15 minutes elapsed before our drink orders arrived. The appetizers and salads took long enough that we worried the entrees would arrive before them. And we asked for more bread three times before getting it. Finally, Molly and Lyndsay ordered a pork tenderloin to split, and they were brought a steak. Granted, a really good steak. All the food was great. The service was just so dismal it was almost comical.



I got an entry into the half-marathon Sunday morning, so Molly (who was also running) and I met at 6:30 to go catch a shuttle to the start line for the 7:30 start. The race organizers hadn't planned for the shuttle demand correctly, and we weren't able to board a shuttle until 7:10. We got to the start area at 7:30, and we figured the race had been postponed because there were still many people who were on shuttles behind us. Wrong. I found out the elite wave had just started and I was in corral #1. I proceeded to run the length of 32 corrals to get to corral 1 as the runners left. Good warm-up. With my heart rate at 195 from racing down to the starting line, I got off to a faster start than I probably should have, but overall I ran a very steady race.

My goal time was 1:35:00 after having run a 1:39 in Philadelphia with very little training. I averaged a 7:08 pace after 5K, 7:02 after 10 Miles, and 7:06 overall, resulting in a finishing time of 1:33:03. Success!



The training paid off not only in getting faster, but also in recovery. I wasn't as sore yesterday or today in comparison with after Philadelphia. Still hobbling around a bit, but if I wasn't it would mean I didn't run hard enough.

After the race we packed up our finish line set-up and said goodbye to Lyndsay who flew out to go home before starting her job for the coming winter months at a ski shop.

Then we drove north to Dallas where we got to see the new apartment of Nate and Whitney (his girlfriend). He started work today, so it was an extremely fast turnaround between jobs for him. We said our goodbyes, and this morning Molly and I got started on a long 650 mile drive to Albaquerque, New Mexico. About 300 miles in, my truck started to lose acceleration like it has done many times before, and after several more incidents we were worried that we wouldn't be making it without some repiars. We put some new fuel in the truck and tried to get it going on the road again. Sure enough, we made it the last 200 miles on new diesel fuel without incident. At this point we're thinking/hoping we got a bad tank of fuel from a station in Texas.

Assuming the truck decides to cooperate tomorrow, we'll go to Flagstaff, where I'll get to see my brother for the first time since August!